


i'll lay my roots in fertile ground

by itsmylifekay



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Maybe - Freeform, POV Nile Freeman, Protectiveness, Sharing Clothes, Slice of Life, Some Plot, Team as Family, We are just here for 13k of fluff and bonding and minor angst people, What would they do without Nile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsmylifekay/pseuds/itsmylifekay
Summary: Andy did this on purpose, she’s sure of it.No matter how many excuses about skillsets and plans and 'you’ve been working on your Arabic, it’ll be good practice, Nile'… she knows now it was all a bunch of lies. There can be no other explanation for why she has been here, stuck with Joe in the middle of a hot, Italian summer while Andy has taken Nicky to the northern most part of France.It is a unique and unexpected kind of hell.(A series of seven stories, snapshots of the first few years of Nile's time with the team. I'm trash for Nile & Nicky & Joe dynamics so there's a lot of that in here, but the others are all part of the craziness as well.)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 97
Kudos: 702





	i'll lay my roots in fertile ground

**Author's Note:**

> warning: there is graphic depiction of animal hunting/preparation in the first part. it should be fairly obvious when it's about to happen if you'd like to skip. Nicky has good aim. No suffering.

They’re staked out somewhere in the Ural mountains, holed up in an old safe house of Andy’s that has definitely seen better days. The entire place barely fits the four of them lying down, and that’s _including_ the way Joe and Nicky perpetually sleep like they’re cramming onto a single bedroll or army cot—something that Nile’s come to find both nauseatingly cute and surprisingly convenient as time’s gone by. Regardless, the place is a glorified shack.

She hates it.

They’re constantly on top of each other. Nicky, at least, is almost always posted up at the single window, rifle in place, squinting to make out any motion in the distance. But Joe and Andy are _insufferable_. Sharpening blades. Cleaning guns.

Pacing.

So when Nicky stands up from his spot and stretches, preparing for his daily trek out into the woods to check the perimeter and, maybe, actually find and shoot something rather than just stare purposefully out the window, Nile jumps to join him.

The sudden movement draws everyone’s attention.

“What?” she asks. “I’m not going to stay in here and go crazy. I’m going with him.” She pulls her coat tighter around her shoulders, shoves a hat on her head, then turns to Nicky. “I’ll try not to scare anything away.”

Nicky just smiles, soft and small, before leading the way out the door. “You’re always welcome to join me, Nile,” he says, lips twitching slightly higher. “Even if it means we don’t get dinner.”

Nile lets out a snort at that. “At this point, I’d eat beans for a week just to catch a break from those two.”

Nicky hums.

They walk away from the shack, towards the tree line and its dark blanket of evergreens, snow crunching beneath their feet. Nicky’s rifle is slung over his back, a smaller handgun and two hunting knives strapped elsewhere on his person, his black cap pulled down low to protect his ears.

Nile glances at his face from the corner of her eye.

“I suppose you’re used to it by now?”

Nicky takes a moment to consider.

“It is easier to accept habits when you have lived with them for centuries,” he allows. “You will discover that for yourself in time. But the ability to feel frustration, annoyance… that never goes away.”

“So you were just as fed up as me back there, huh?”

She’s gotten better about reading between the lines-- Seeing beneath Joe’s passionate outbursts to the deep, foundational currents running underneath. Recognizing the love and protective motivations behind Andy’s moods and prickly comments. And, for Nicky, learning to read the subtle implications of his words and smiles, which were often few and far between.

“I thought it was time for a walk, yes.”

They settle into a comfortable silence after that, Nile following a half pace behind Nicky as he leads them further into the forest. The landscape is beginning the slow shift from winter to spring, temperatures rising incrementally and making the occasional clump of snow fall from needle-thick branches to the ground below. Each soft thump is quickly swallowed by silence, broken only by the rhythmic crunching of their steps.

Nile takes it all in with curious, appreciative eyes. She’s not been to Russia yet. And she can’t say she’s ever been out hunting in the snow with an immortal soldier, either. There’s a quiet, ancient beauty in the trees around them and she finds herself treading lightly not just for fear of a leaner dinner, but because some part of her is reluctant to break the spell.

She wonders how many times Nicky has done this. _Andy,_ in all of her millennia _._ She wonders if it brings back memories of a different time.

Wonders if those memories are happy or bittersweet.

After maybe twenty minutes, Nicky stops, Nile freezing behind him as his head cocks and he crouches to the ground. He motions for Nile to do the same.

Tracks, in the snow, two crescents of a hoof per each indentation.

Nicky readjusts his rifle and stands, starts heading in a slightly different direction than they’d been going before. Nile tries to follow the tracks herself, but it doesn’t take long before they disappear, branching off into some low, brittle brush that they have no hope of passing. Nicky is unbothered, keeps walking without a second glance.

It doesn’t take long for Nile to figure out why. They emerge from the forest into another clearing, broken up by a few rocky outcrops and a creek bed that has just barely begun to thaw. The snow is uneven, trampled flat by the animals that have passed through, and the white expanse is currently dotted with a number of reddish brown deer nibbling at whatever sparse vegetation they can find.

Nicky motions for her to stay quiet and they move slowly, Nicky eventually settling on his stomach still over a football field length’s away, moving his rifle into place, finger hovering above the trigger.

Nile sucks in a slow breath as he does, breathes out and watches as a deer falls in the distance, Nicky catching the case in his gloved hand and slipping it innocently into his pocket when Nile lifts a brow.

“You always do that?” she asks.

Nicky shrugs. “Pick it up later, catch it now. This way I do not have to worry I’ll forget.”

“Right,” Nile says, standing up and brushing snow from her coat. “Catching it is definitely the easier option of the two. Remind me to show you Legally Blonde later, I think there’s a line in there you’ll like.”

“If I like it, am I allowed to use it?”

Nile shoots him a look. “Don’t act like you weren’t suffering as much as the rest of us. Even if he’s the love of your life, a person can only hear A Thousand Years so many times before they’re ready to commit murder.”

“You knew he would like it,” Nicky reminds.

“Like it, yeah. Not obsessively serenade you with it for a week straight.”

Nicky smiles at that, a proper one that lights up his whole face. “A true romantic.”

Nile shakes her head. “Sure, if that’s what you want to call it.”

The other deer have fled by the time they make it down to the one Nick shot, blood seeping out into the snow and melting it slightly into something that disturbingly resembles a cherry slushie. Nile crinkles her nose.

The shot had gone straight through the deer’s head, killing it instantly, but the force had left a bit of a mess. Nile’s seen a lot of things, but she’s not sure she wants to follow Nicky all the way back to the safe house with that staring back at her from over his shoulder.

They’ve only been here for a couple of weeks, waiting to rendezvous with a contact that had insisted on absolute secrecy and seclusion in order to drop off whatever information he’d managed to squirrel away from a particularly nasty faction of the Russian mob. Honestly, Nile can’t blame him. If she was about to fuck over the Russian mob, she’d want to make sure her ass was covered too.

But it’s still taking a bit longer than they’d expected. Which means their food situation had gotten stretched thin after the first week. Nicky has been supplementing with the occasional grouse, all of them subtly shifting more food Andy’s way, but this is the first time she’s seem him bring down anything much bigger than a rabbit.

That’s probably why she’s not expecting it when he pulls out a large hunting knife and goes straight to work cutting open the chest cavity, pausing to briefly glance over his shoulder when she makes a shocked sound.

“Oh,” he says. “Did you want to help?”

“I’ll uh—I’ll sit this one out. Better to watch the first time than mess up dinner.”

Nicky nods and goes back to cutting. “You learn to appreciate anatomy when you are forced to so frequently confront your own.”

He goes elbow deep into the deer’s chest and before long its insides are…out. She thinks back to Booker slumped in the chair, body slowly knitting itself back together, and comes to the sudden, visceral realization that that was just going to be a part of her life now. Blood. Bones. Viscera.

She stares down at her gloved hand and remembers bones cracking back into place. The sounds of her skeleton putting itself back to rights.

A particularly loud thunk draws her back to reality, turning just in time to see Nicky push the deer’s now decapitated head away and start tying up its feet.

She takes his rifle wordlessly when he gives it to her, watching as he slings the carcass over his shoulder instead. It’s still dripping a bit of blood, but nothing compared to the mess spread out on the snow.

Nicky follows her stare.

“A thank you,” he says. “To the forest, for what we have taken.”

Nile scrunches her face. “Well for future reference, I’d prefer a card.”

That shocks a laugh from him and Nile is pleased to be the cause.

“Consider it noted,” he says.

++

The walk back to the safe house is suspiciously shorter. Nicky takes off in a straight line path back through the trees and Nile’s eyes narrow when the shack comes into view in basically half the time it took to leave it.

Nicky sees her look and his lips twitch up on one side. “I thought you could use the air.”

Nile chooses not to say anything to that. Because yeah, she had.

But she doesn’t need it quite so much to stay out with him while he finishes preparing the venison for their dinner, leaves that to Joe instead, who passes her just outside the doorway with his face barely visible inside his hood.

The door shuts and Andy looks up from the table.

“How was your walk?”

“It was good,” she says. “A bit more educational than I expected.” She plops down by the little wood stove and peels off her gloves, holds her hands up to the heat. “I’ll never complain about grocery shopping again.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said too.” Nile makes a face at the memory. “Kind of.”

She hears laughter from outside, bright and loud before Joe shouts something and the sound becomes muffled in the snow. Nile gets up to peek but Andy just rolls her eyes.

“Children.”

Joe is sprawled out in the snow outside, Nicky half on top of him and pinning him down while a mess of slush melts from the back of his neck, no doubt soaking his shirt. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the cause.

Or Joe’s motivation for it, as Nicky immediately strips off his coat and shirt as soon as he’s through the door, lays them out to dry by the fire and starts rummaging in his bag for something dry.

Joe shamelessly drapes himself across his back and kisses his shoulder. Nile rolls her eyes.

“Seriously?”

Andy sighs. “No sex in front of the kid.”

Nile opens her mouth to argue that title, then immediately snaps it shut, decides being treated as the baby of the group is well worth it if it means avoiding mental scarring that could last literal centuries. She sits down next to Andy and crosses her arms.

Nicky laughs. Joe watches him, completely enamored, and only pulls away after stealing a kiss that has Andy pointedly standing up and dropping a pan on the stove.

Dinner, thankfully, is much less eventful.

They’re a bundle of blankets and bodies by the time the sun is down, retaining heat and hunkering down for the night much the same way they have for the past weeks. Nicky is closest to the door and farthest from the fire, Joe at his back dressed in two layers of clothes while Nicky sleeps in a single shirt and periodically kicks the blankets from his feet. Andy is in the middle, reluctant but resigned, and Nile is pressed to the back wall, feet toasty warm thanks to the crackling of the fire.

She falls asleep easily, stomach full, and only wakes once in the soft light of early morning, mind racing from a dream that she hopes now to be only half acquired memory. Fabric shifts across the room, a gentle rustling in the crisp chill of the morning, fire down to embers at her feet. Nicky’s low voice is familiar as it tells her “Sleep, all is well.”

She closes her eyes.

And sleeps.

\---

The next time they’re stuck somewhere with snow is only marginally better. They have running water and more than one room, but the heating is out and even Nile, used to harsh Chicago winters, has found herself hunkering under blankets as the sun dips and temperatures drop further. Thankfully they’re only going to be here for another day, just a short stopover to lay low after a mission before catching a flight to Europe, where Andy has promised them a longer break somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Nile imagines that now, trudging through large, wet flakes of snow that would be beautiful if she didn’t have to be outside, blinking them from her eyelashes and shuddering as they melt against her cheeks, finding any exposed crevice and dampening the fabric around her neck. She imagines warm beaches and soft sand beneath her feet, good food and the feeling of sun against her skin, clothes airy and light and _dry_.

She shoulders open the door and drops the armful of wood into the entrance with the rest, deeming the pile big enough to get them through the night and most of the following morning and kicking the door closed with another bang.

Joe pokes his head out of the kitchen and gives her a sympathetic look.

“Go get dry,” he says. “Dinner will be ready soon.”

She nods, already stripping off her coat and leaving it hanging over a chair by the fire to dry. What she wants more than anything is a hot shower, but the antiquated water heater can get to lukewarm at best. It still manages to chase away some of the chill and before long she’s dressed in a pair of pajama pants and a flannel shirt, rubbing at her arms as she plops back down on the couch to wait for food.

Joe passes her on his way out the door to shout for Nicky, gives her a look before disappearing into their bedroom. A soft bundle of fabric hits her in the chest a minute later.

It’s a sweatshirt, dark and well worn, and she quickly recognizes it as one of Nicky’s, material slightly thicker than what he wears on missions.

She looks up at Joe. “Won’t he want to wear this?”

“He will want you to be warm,” Joe says, voice firm despite the soft look in his eyes. Then, he huffs. “Besides, he has more. Hoarding sweatshirts is one of Nicky’s more recent vices.”

Nile laughs, biting her lip as Joe shakes his head and mutters _I don’t even know where he keeps getting them._

Nile decides not to push, just tugs the hoodie over her head and settles further into the couch, pulling the sleeves over her hands. The cuffs are frayed and the front pocket is slightly stretched. It smells like Nicky, which isn’t something she thought she’d recognize.

Joe disappears back into the kitchen followed by the clinking and clanking of plates, then Andy appears with a bottle of wine and a few glasses she sets on the table.

The door swings open again just as Joe is calling Nile to sit, all of them turning to watch Nicky come blowing in with the snow. His shoulders are dusted in white, more of it falling to the floor as he pushes back his hood and shakes out his hair, already wet and plastered to his forehead.

Nile only had to walk from the covered woodpile around the side of the cabin to the front door and back. Nicky’s been checking the perimeter, making the slow circuit of the surrounding woods in deepening snow drifts as the light flurries of early evening became the thick, heavy flakes now making puddles on the floor. His boots are left to leak out across the hardwood as he sets his coat on a chair beside Nile’s, goes padding into their bedroom to change.

Of the four of them, Nicky is the best with the cold.

She knows from Joe’s accounts and from limited personal experience that he’s a furnace, suffers for it sometimes in warmer climates, but can generally manage by kicking off sheets and cranking the AC while Joe leaches heat from his back.

Andy isn’t really bothered by anything, but she seems happy to let Nicky handle the snow, will stay inside by the fire without much of a fuss.

Joe, however, is convinced winter is an elaborate plot to torture mankind and that the only cold should come from chilled water and ice cream enjoyed on a warm beach. He presses close to Nicky’s warmth and complains endlessly about the cold to anyone who’s willing to listen.

It’s honestly pretty hilarious. The same man she’s seen break a man’s neck without blinking, utterly cowed by a little cold.

They sit down to eat and Nicky emerges just a minute later, hair still damp and feet bare as he pads over to the table, pulling on a pair of thick socks as Joe sets a plate in front of him. There’s a near-silent _grazie_ in return _._

Finally, he looks up. Nile tries not to shift in her seat, knows logically that it’s not a big deal but still feels a little weird about wearing someone’s clothes without their permission. (He and Joe might be connected at the hip but they’re still their own people. Just because Joe said it was okay doesn't necessarily means it is.)

But Nicky’s face just goes soft and warm, the way it does when Joe says something particularly sweet or Andy hands him a package she’d picked up while she was out. It speaks of love and family and an easy affection built between them for hundreds of years. A little ball forms in her throat to be a part of it.

Her fingers clench in the fabric beneath the table.

Nicky doesn’t say a word, just tucks into his food while Joe winks at her from across the table. Andy smirks against her wine glass.

Half an hour later and she’s back on the couch, tucked up against the armrest with her feet beneath her, a cup of hot cocoa Andy had produced and refused to explain between her hands. Joe is poking at the fire and Andy is sprawled out on one of the chairs, head tilted back and swirling a half full glass of wine in one hand.

Nicky has disappeared back into the bedroom, the reason why becoming clear when the couch dips and he settles in beside her, near identical sweatshirt stretched across his shoulders, hood pulled up and half obscuring the mischievous tilt of his mouth he aims her way.

She elbows him gently in the side.

“See!” Joe says, looking to Nile. “Always another one. I could destroy every sweatshirt in the world and this man would still find a way to produce another.”

Nicky huffs a laugh.

“Don’t let that face fool you, Nile,” he continues. “I let a sweatshirt into the house one time and suddenly I cannot get rid of them. They multiply like mice.”

She shrugs. “Seems pretty convenient to me. I’m surprised you don’t steal them all the time.”

Joe looks absolutely _scandalized._

“Nile,” Andy says, eyes cracking open as her head tilts to face them. “This is the man who wore designer jeans to his own execution.”

Nicky gives Joe a soft look and a crooked smile. “It’s true,” he says. “You, my love, have more jewelry than some of the royal families.”

Joe just huffs and crosses his arms. “Hopeless, the both of you. You lack any sense of fashion.”

Nicky leans closer to Nile, eyes on Joe as he whispers loud enough for the whole room to hear. “He buys me nice jackets so I can wear them once before he steals them.”

Joe’s mouth falls open and Nile cackles, scooting her feet out of the way as Joe pounces on top of Nicky and pulls him into a headlock, wrestling him half off the couch before they both relent and fall to a heap on the floor, exchanging soft laughter and quiet jibes before eventually quieting down and hauling themselves back up onto the couch. This time, Nicky is against the armrest, Joe leaned back against his side. He tugs teasingly at the strings of Nicky’s hoodie, earning himself a halfhearted glare completely ruined by the way Nicky’s hand starts rubbing gentle circles at the back of Joe’s neck.

Nile watches them for a moment, feeling soft, and nearly drops her hot cocoa in surprise when Joe nudges her feet a moment later. His thigh lifts in invitation and she blinks, takes only a moment to decide _fuck it_ and shift to tuck her feet between the couch and faded denim. Her toes are instantly warmer.

It feels comfortable, and warm. It feels like _home._

Her hands clench around the mug, eyes slipping shut as she takes a moment to just soak it all in.

She hears Andy take a breath behind her.

“If you fall asleep like that I’m not carrying any of you to bed.”

Beside her, Joe laughs.

“Love you too, boss.”

\---

Andy did this on purpose, she’s sure of it.

No matter how many excuses about skillsets and plans and _you’ve been working on your Arabic, it’ll be good practice, Nile…_ she knows now it was all a bunch of lies. There can be no other explanation for why she has been here, stuck with Joe in the middle of a hot, Italian summer while Andy has taken Nicky to the northern most part of France.

It is a unique and unexpected kind of hell.

The first few days hadn’t been too bad. They’d been busy, Joe had been distracted, and they had been meant to reunite at the end of the week.

That week has turned into nearly three _months._

Joe is inconsolable.

He stares out at the sea and talks about Nicky’s eyes. He eats dinner and talks about Nicky’s cooking, his favorite foods. They pass a church during Sunday mass, Italian hymns ringing out into the streets, and he nearly bursts into tears.

Nile doesn’t know what to do. She’s torn between locking him in his bedroom until Nicky returns or throwing herself into the ocean to wash up on another continent. Either would be an improvement at this point.

And she gets it, she does. She misses Andy and Nicky and the little family they’ve made, and she’s sure Nicky is moping in his own way wherever he and Andy have holed up to wait. It’s just… Joe is so _dramatic._

He mutters sad poetry into the sheets before going to bed.

He throws himself across the couch and tells Nile he can’t last much longer, not without the other half of his soul.

So honestly she feels it’s well within her rights when she takes off for a day, decides to walk around the city and do some shopping, talk to people who aren’t lovesick for their immortal other half. It’s nice, it’s easy, with the sun on her face and people bustling all around her, to forget for a moment that she’s stuck here watching out for the head of a criminal organization while her treacherous leader roots out its fingers across Europe.

They’d taken down the main hub weeks ago. Now, it was just a waiting game, unable to rejoin Andy and Nicky after they’d gone dark somewhere along the Belgian border.

Which is why she’s surprised when, as she enters the shop that sells the pastries Joe particularly likes, she recognizes the back turned to her at the counter. She crosses her arms and waits for him to turn.

When he does, his eyes light up in recognition.

“Nile,” he says, surprised. He raises the bag hanging from his fingers. “Are you here for these as well?”

“Yeah, they usually keep him happy for a few minutes. Before he starts waxing about when you’ll return from the war.”

Nicky smiles, soft and fond. “Have you both been well?”

Nile shrugs. “Yeah, all things considered. You guys? Where’s Andy?”

“Andy has gone for a walk as well.”

Nicky holds the door for her as they duck back out into the sun, dodging crowds as they make their way down the streets.

Nile snorts. “Yeah, I bet she has. Maybe I’ll go find her, leave you and Joe to reunite on your own.”

“She said she would be back in time for dinner,” he says. “We know how to control ourselves when there is company.”

Nile hums, unconvinced, and eyes him openly, taking in the hair that has grown nearly down to his shoulders and the scruff that has taken over his face.

“You and Andy camp out in a cave, then?”

Nicky’s mouth twitches up at the corner. “At one time, yes,” he says, then glances at her. “I’ve been avoiding mirrors. Tell me, how bad is it?”

“I don’t think I can say until you’ve showered.”

He puts a hand to his heart, eyes wide and pathetic, but Nile knows him well enough by now not to fall for those tricks, just shoves him lightly in the side until he smiles and continues walking.

When she opens the door to the place they’ve been using, Joe calls out from the kitchen.

“Find everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she calls back. “Found something extra, too.”

There’s a clatter of cookware and then his head pokes around the corner into the hall, mouth half open on a question before his eyes widen as he sees who stands behind her in the doorway.

She catches the bag of pastries easily as it drops from Nicky’s hand, rolling her eyes and leaving them to embrace in the hall while she sorts things out in the kitchen, makes sure the house doesn’t burn to embers around them.

“Nicolo,” Joe says, apparently having stopped kissing him long enough to speak. “Nicolo your _hair._ ”

Nicky laughs, low and depreciating. “I know, it’s—”

“ _Beautiful_ ,” Joe says, leaves no room for anything else. “Just like when we met.”

“I was an unwashed mess when we met, Joe,” Nicky reminds.

“Yes, but you were _my_ unwashed mess,” Joe says. “And here you are again, returned to my arms as if not a day has passed. Although maybe it’s _not_ quite as long, in another few months perhaps...” He trails off and then huffs, laughs. “Don’t make that face. Do you remember how I used to help you wash it?”

Nile decides that’s her cue to escape, slips out onto the balcony and swings herself over the rail to go find Andy. Someone to commiserate with, at the very least. And despite the treachery, she _did_ miss her.

That feeling lasts right up until they return to the house, the sky dark but both men still awake and watching TV in the living room. Andy walks straight in and looks at Nicky, tilts her head towards the bathroom.

“Want me to cut your hair?”

Joe makes a wounded noise.

Nicky sighs. “Joe, it’s not practical.”

“Sometimes things don’t have to be practical,” he says. “Sometimes they can just be beautiful.” He reaches over and runs his fingers through some of the hair that’s fallen just past Nicky’s shoulders. He’s showered since Nile last saw him and she has to admit, it does look a lot better without all the oil and tangles.

She tilts her head, considering.

Nicky shakes his head. “Joe…”

“Please?” Joe asks, eyes wide and full of hope. He looks almost innocent, but even Nile, who’s known him only a fraction of the time Nicky has, isn’t fooled. “You won’t give me even a week? A day?”

Andy settles down on one of the open chairs with a groan, head tilted back and eyes closed.

“I know your days, my love. You would worm your way beneath my skin and convince me to never cut it.”

Joe’s smile turns caught out and pleased. “And would that be such a bad thing?”

“It draws too much attention,” Nicky says. “You can’t deny that, Joe. I caught multiple people staring just today.”

“Of course they’re staring, my love. You are a sculpture brought to life.”

He pushes his fingers through Nicky’s hair, tucking it behind his ear to properly cup his jaw. 

The room is quiet save for the background noise of the TV, Joe staring at him hopefully, Andy ignoring them both, and Nile caught somewhere in the middle.

Nicky blows out a defeated breath.

“One night,” he says. “Andy will cut it in the morning.”

Joe’s face lights up and he presses closer, gets both arms around Nicky’s shoulders to drag him into his chest, fingers tangling in Nicky’s hair and mouth pressing noisy kisses to the scruff along his cheeks.

Andy stands and shakes her head. “I told you this would happen if you waited, Nicky.”

He smiles ruefully. “You did.”

At the same time, Joe sits up enough to shoot her a half-hearted glare. “Traitor.”

The effect is entirely lost by the way he clings to Nicky, holding onto him like an oversized teddy bear while Nicky pats his arm soothingly. Andy grabs her bag of weapons from the floor.

Nile shakes her head.

“You are all _so_ weird,” she says. “I’m going to bed.”

They all laugh, utterly unrepentant.

++

The following morning Nile is moderately rested, but not as awake as she’d like considering the planning she’d done and the ungodly hour she’d had to wake to catch Nicky making coffee in the kitchen.

He looks up at her in surprise when she comes in.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.

“Thought I’d get an early start,” she says, reaching for a mug. “Got enough of that to share?”

He smiles, eyes still watching her with concern. “Of course.” Then, after he’s poured her coffee and waited for her to take a few sips. “Something on your mind?”

“Do you have plans today?” she asks instead.

Nicky blinks at the change, but otherwise doesn’t comment. “Nothing in particular. Maybe a walk through the market, to see the sights. We will not spend much more time here now that the job is done.” He sighs and looks towards the bedrooms. “Although I imagine I will spend much of today consoling Joe.”

Nile hums into her cup. “About that,” she says. “How would you feel about giving him a bit of a surprise?”

++

Two hours later and they’re outside a small shop, Joe left pouting in the market with instructions for lunch and Andy laughing at his side. She’s glad that they trust her enough to do this, to blindly follow her plans despite the betrayal in their recent past.

She smiles cheerfully at Nicky as he glares up at the sign.

“Why are we here?” he asks.

“You know why we’re here.” She pushes open the door and gestures him inside.

The sounds of clippers and hair dryers immediately meet them, black chairs lined up in front of mirrors with combs and clippers at each station. There’s already a young woman approaching them, smile on her face. Nile pats him on the arm.

“Just close your eyes and think of Joe.”

She’s heard of children being terrible at the barber’s, but to see a grown man pull such a pitiful face as he’s settled into the chair has Nile biting her lip to hold back a laugh. (From the way Nicky’s eyes dart over to narrow at her reproachfully, she’s not entirely successful.)

When she’d set up the appointment, she’d requested the full treatment—shampoo, condition, essential oils on the scalp, shaping of the beard, and, of course, the haircut. Just a trim.

Nicky glared at her through the mirror as she repeated that last instruction to the stylist. Her Italian was decent thanks to Nicky’s patient instructions, and she had a feeling he was regretting that now. But it’d be worth it.

Joe would be happy and therefore Nicky would be happy. Even if he was pouting now, even if he only kept it for a day or two. It’d be worth it.

Still, Nile isn’t entirely prepared for that final reveal, when the stylist spins his chair around and Nicky stands, already brushing away stray hairs and grumbling under his breath. His hair is long and glossy, falls part way in front of his face before he brushes it back again. His beard has been tamed down into something that looks purposeful, framing his face instead of consuming it.

He looks clean and soft and… _beautiful_. Like, Nile would not think twice seeing his face on the cover of some magazine. Which is something she decides to never say aloud unless she wants to hear Joe’s _I-Told-You-So_ s for the rest of their very long existence.

She settles for giving him a nod. “You clean up nice.”

He sighs and shuffles to the counter to pay the bill, shooting another look back at Nile at the price. She shrugs. Considering how protective Joe had been, she wasn’t about to trust Nicky _or_ his hair to just anyone.

The bell jingles again as they leave and Nicky immediately runs a hand through his hair to push it out of his face, making it fall in soft waves over is ears before inevitably sliding forward again.

“This is a waste,” he says.

Nile snorts. “Not if you do that in front of Joe it’s not.”

“Do what?”

Nile just shakes her head. “Never mind, I’m sure it doesn’t matter what you do. He’s going to pee himself and I am going to take full credit for it. Now hurry up, I want to get back to the house before he does.”

Nicky makes some kind of choked sound behind her, hurrying to catch up. He doesn’t complain again until they’re back at the house, assuring her this is all entirely unnecessary. Nile shushes him and tells him to stay in the entryway until she can go scope out the house, make sure it’s empty.

It is, Andy having made up for past transgressions by keeping Joe occupied, and Nile is desperately curious to know what she’s doing to keep Joe away when he knows his time with pre-haircut Nicky is rapidly disappearing. Nicky good-naturedly follows her inside and into the bedroom he and Joe share.

“Where does Joe keep his joggers?” she asks.

Nicky crosses his arms and leans against the doorjamb. Absolutely no help. Ungrateful.

She starts digging through the drawers.

“Nile,” he says, still not moving an inch. “I have my own clothes.”

“You do,” she says. “But Joe has better ones. Now are you going to help or am I going to find something I’d rather not know about?”

She shuts one drawer and goes to open another, smiling victoriously when Nicky darts out to stop her. He sighs, soft and long-suffering, before opening the bottom drawer and gesturing to the left. “Black or grey?”

Nile grabs the grey then shuts the drawer with her foot. “Get one of your black hoodies. And…” She reopens the drawer she’d dug through before and takes out a soft white undershirt, one that she assumes is Joe’s since it’s still in good condition and not stained at the pits.

She shoves it and the joggers at Nicky’s chest when he finishes digging in his duffle for a hoodie. “Put these on.”

“What,” he asks, deadpan. “No underwear?”

She shrugs. “That’s up to you. So long as what you’re wearing doesn’t have holes in them.”

He doesn’t dignify that with a response, just turns away and starts shucking off his jeans. Nile turns towards the door as well, listening to his grumbling and the rustle of fabric.

“Well,” he finally says. “Are we finished playing dress up now?”

Nile turns, shakes her head. “Socks off.”

He makes a face, but she just crosses her arms, smiles when he relents and tosses them into a corner. She reaches up and brushes her fingers a few times through his hair, setting it back to rights before pulling the hood up over his head.

He looks soft and handsome and she’s suddenly much more sympathetic to Joe’s efforts to burn all his plain t-shirts and button ups. He looks _good._

Joe is going to owe her for at least a century.

“There,” she says, stepping away. “Now we’re done.”

She plants him on the couch and ignores his final _Really Nile, I know Joe likes long hair but I don’t see why all this is necessary._ Instead, she tells him to sit still and to thank her later, hides herself in the kitchen and waits for Joe’s return.

They don’t have to wait long, maybe half an hour later the door rattles and Joe’s footfalls are sharp and quick, his voice tinged with frustration as he comes down the hall.

“Andy, I love you, but if you ask me about the ripeness of tomatoes one more time I’m going to be turned off the fruit for the rest of time. Please, I promise they are fine. Nicky and I will help you in the kitchen if you need.”

Andy makes a hurt sound that without even looking Nile knows is fake. “Try to cook for you for the first time in centuries and this is what I get?”

“It is pasta, boss. It is not hard, I promise. A child could do…it… Nicky?”

His footsteps stop and Nile peeks around the doorway, doing a mental fist pump at the way Joe is still standing stunned halfway into the room. His eyes are wide, mouth half open, as Nicky looks at him over the back of the couch.

“Joe?”

Joe blinks, and then in an instant he is on the other side of the couch, pressing into Nicky’s space, hands dipping beneath Nicky’s hood to push it gently from his face.

“Nicolo,” he breathes. “My Nicolo, _so beautiful._ ” He shifts into Italian and Nile catches Andy smirking from the hall. _“Do you know what you do to me? You must, to tease me like this. You are a work of art, meant for cathedrals and roman halls, and even then they could not appreciate your beauty. The finest painters couldn’t capture you, Nicolo, I swear it.”_

Nicky looks up at Joe, awestruck, face flushed and book long forgotten on the cushions.“Yusuf, I…” Words fail and he draws Joe into a kiss instead, pulling him onto the couch with him and whimpering against Joe’s lips.

Nile sneaks past them to join Andy in the hall, smiling at the eyebrow Andy gives her then making a face at the loud groan that echoes into the entryway. The door shuts behind them and Andy puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Good call on the hotel,” she says. She reaches behind some stonework and pulls out two backpacks, hands one to Nile. “We’ll check on them in a couple of days.”

She starts off down the street and Nile falls into step beside her. “Did you really keep him distracted with tomatoes?”

Andy grins. “Tomatoes, basil, little old ladies with stories about their grandchildren...”

Nile snorts.

Another job well done.

\---

There’s rain falling from the sky, thick, cold droplets that soak the earth and everything on it. Nile is already drenched to the bone, clothes sticking to her body and feet slipping in the mud as she spins around, fires more shots into the trees behind her.

Everything is washed out and pale. Thick clouds choke out the sun and rising winds whip through the trees.

The job is all but done, hostages freed and picked up by another of Copley’s contacts, but they hadn’t managed to neutralize everyone on site before being forced to flee into the surrounding woods. It’s those remaining hostiles who are after her now, angry political radicals with too many guns and too little common sense. They have to know there’s nothing left for them to salvage. Killing her or even capturing her won’t do them any good.

It’s over.

But their shouts get closer and she has a feeling that this isn’t about logic at all. Revenge. Violence. Causing pain for the sake of it. She grits her teeth and holds her gun tighter, prepares to fire and make each bullet count. With any luck, she won’t have to die, would rather avoid that particular roller coaster if she can. But she’s not counting on it.

The first men break through the surrounding trees and she shoots, manages to pick off three and take a couple bullets of her own before the first gets close enough to tackle her to the ground.

She doesn’t go down quietly.

She shouts and throws back an elbow, hears a satisfying crack before hitting the dirt and grappling for the upper hand. There’s mud and rain and blood mixing beneath them, confused shouts around them, guns pointed but unable to get a clean shot. She wonders how long it’ll be before they decide their colleague is collateral damage.

Nile tries to buck her hips but the mud gives out beneath her boots, costs her her balance just long enough for the man to pin her to the ground. He grins down at her, knife in hand and face stained with mud, eyes dark and full of hatred. The first flash of pain is quick, but the knife twists and burns in her side, makes her grit her teeth so she doesn’t cry out. He begins to laugh above her, letting go of the knife to reach for his gun.

Then, suddenly, he falls. A bullet hole just above his left eye.

The forest erupts around her.

The rain is still pounding down, trees creaking, thunder beginning to rumble in the distance. Gunshots ring out, followed by startled shouts of pain. The sound of a sword leaving its sheath.

“Nile!”

That’s Joe. She cranes her neck to try and find him, pushes the body off of her chest and pulls the knife from her side, coughs at the sudden rush of pain and the blood that pours between her fingers.

The sounds of fighting continue around her.

She’s been with them long enough to recognize the sound of a blade meeting flesh, digging in and rending muscle and bone, the gurgle of choking on blood. She can still hear it, even over the sound of the rain.

Joe lands on his knees beside her, puts a hand on her arm and tries to meet her eyes. “Nile, what’s wrong?”

She blinks at him, watching over his shoulder as Nicky strikes down another man, sword tearing out of his side and leaving a growing dark patch on the ground.

“I’m fine,” she says. “Already healing.”

It hurts like a motherfucker, but that’s just part of life now. She takes her hand away and wipes it on her pants. She can hardly tell where rain ends and blood begins.

A bullet falls to the ground and Nile finally looks up and focuses on Joe, watches as a wound closes in his shoulder through the tear in his shirt.

“Maybe you should be more worried about yourself.”

Joe gives her a lopsided grin. “Never.”

There’s an angry shout behind them and they both turn to watch Nicky lunge at the final gunman, sword plunging into the soft space beneath his arm, staying buried deep as the man gasps and shudders and finally goes still. Nicky pulls out his sword and the body falls face first to the ground.

“Uh,” Nile says, still staring. “Everyone okay?”

Joe hums and holds out a hand to help her up. “We’re fine. We were worried about you.”

Nicky nods his agreement. “We realized too late that the survivors had followed you into the woods.” He wipes his sword on his already ruined pants. “We came as quickly as we could.”

“Well, thank you.” She takes in both of their ragged appearances and huffs a laugh. “Seems like you two got the worst of it honestly.”

Joe snorts and re-holsters his gun.

Nicky watches her silently. “You’re sure you’re unharmed?”

Nile rolls her eyes. “How about you check a mirror?” She gestures to the side of her face where Nicky got grazed, skin coming back together even as she speaks. There are other bullet holes along his body, but she’s not sure when or where they came from, how many are from the initial attack and how many are from this little scuffle in the woods.

Nicky’s lips twitch into a smile. “I am glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah….” She looks around at the bodies scattered between the trees, some marked with bullet holes and others with wounds from Nicky’s sword. “You guys ready to get out of here?”

They nod and begin their way back through the trees, heading towards the road and the car Booker has waiting for them. It had been a four-man operation, or really more like three and a half.

Andy is with Quynh, reunited and making up for lost time—which she _really_ doesn’t want to think too hard about. Booker is back but Joe and Nicky still don’t trust him enough to have him fully involved, had left him in charge of the getaway car and some initial surveillance but not much else.

Nile feels a little bad for him, but she also understands the pain Joe and Nicky are feeling, the betrayal and the acidic burn of broken trust still sharp in their memories. He is allowed back, ninety nine years early, and Nile knows their family will mend itself fully again soon. It seems their groups heals and comes back together nearly as fast as their bodies do.

Nicky hangs back a little as they hike, one hand still resting on the hilt of his sword, and Nile casts the occasional glance back in his direction before finally turning and whispering at Joe.

“Is he okay?”

Joe smiles and looks up at the sky, rain sluicing down his face and making him squint. “Nicky is a passionate man,” he says. “And he is very protective of those he cares about.”

“Oh,” she says, sneaking another glance back at the man in question.

She knew Joe could be vengeful, had watched him break a man’s neck for shooting Nicky. He wore his emotions on his sleeve, from his fierce love to his protective anger.

But she’s only seen Nicky truly angry or upset once before, had watched him shoot down a woman that had threatened Andy before tearing down everyone else who dared get in his way.

It had been shocking at the time, but Andy had only huffed and told her to wait until it was Joe in trouble. Apparently it could get much worse. Nile’s honestly still trying to figure out how she felt about that. How she could reconcile the Nicky who she knew now to the one Andy had described.

It turns out it’s not that hard at all, not when she sees all that concern directed at her, the rush of protective violence breaking around her like a wave. It’s overwhelming to think about—how after just a year she is part of the family, Nicky and Joe protecting her in the same way they would Andy, the same way they would _each other._

She feels a little dumbfounded. A little honored. A little weird that she feels that way at all.

Joe hums in agreement. “Oh.”

Nicky catches up to them as they approach the car, opens the door for Nile to slide into the backseat then follows in after, sword unbuckled and left propped in the foot well but gun still settled across his lap.

Joe throws her a wink as he climbs into the front.

She sighs. It’s like having too big brothers. It’d be frustrating if it weren’t so endearing. She wonders if either of them ever had sisters, before.

One day, she’ll ask.

For now, she settles into the backseat and meets Booker’s eyes in the mirror, gives him a grateful smile that he returns before pulling out onto the road.

Towards home.

\---

They’re all together, tucked away in a house somewhere in the German countryside. Neutral territory, for the most part. None of them have deep ties here. And the home is big enough that they can separate and come together, planets realigning after being thrown out of orbit, hurtling like asteroids through space.

Nile is glad to feel some of the tension easing, both the guilt that Quynh brought back to the surface and the betrayal Booker carried with him like a cross.

The first few days had been terrible.

There had been some shouting, some slammed doors, even some tears, but it’s been nearly a month and things have settled into something better, comfortable. Andy wants them to feel like a team again. Nile wants them to feel like a family.

They may doubt they’ll ever truly be able to recover, not in this century at least, but Nile has nope, has seen how resilient they can be. Joe has already stopped checking the doors when Booker enters a room. Booker has stopped staring at Quynh like a ghost brought to life.

They just need to get their heads out of their assess long enough to see it.

She’s at the dining room table with Booker, practicing her French because she figured that was as good an olive branch as any. He’s nursing a glass of water, fingers twitching in a way she knows means he wants a cigarette, alcohol, _anything_ to numb the pain. But he doesn’t get up. He’s trying to be better.

Andy and Quynh come through the door, both of them laughing, close together. They dump a few days worth of groceries on the counter and Quynh pokes Andy in the back hard enough to earn a swat.

“I want mango curry for dinner,” she says.

Andy huffs. “Then make it yourself.”

Quynh jabs her in the back again, dodging out of the way when Andy spins around and goes to grab her, both of them teetering on the edge of laughter and actually starting a brawl in the kitchen.

“Please don’t break the cabinets,” Nicky calls. “They will be difficult to replace.”

Quynh tsks and settles for tossing an onion at Andy’s head, underhanded, not even bothering to see if she catches it. “No fun at all.”

She saunters past the table to where Nicky and Joe are curled up in the window seat that overlooks the yard, Nicky with a book in his lap and Joe with a sketchbook in his hands.

“You didn’t hear me complaining when you two broke the sofa back in Athens. Or the table in Venice. Or the counters in Dub—”

“If you break the kitchen, I cannot make your mango curry,” Nicky answers smoothly. “If you’d like to break something, I only ask you choose somewhere else.”

Quynh hums at that, regards him for a moment before traipsing back into the kitchen and draping herself over Andy’s back. “Hear that? Sounds like Nicky’s cooking tonight. I guess _he_ likes me more than you do.”

“Oh yeah?”

Andy gets a glint in her eye that has Nile bracing her glass of water on the table. Just in time, too, because Andy hauls Quynh over her shoulder, carries her flailing past the table and back out the doorway, down the hall towards the bedrooms. A door shuts somewhere in the distance.

Nicky sighs and shuts his book, goes into the kitchen to finish putting away the groceries. Joe stares after him longingly.

“It’s cruel to deprive an artist of his muse,” he calls after.

“I’m sure you’ll find another subject.”

Joe opens his mouth, affronted, pulls his legs down so his feet land with a solid thunk on the floor. “I would settle for nothing and no one but you, my love.” To prove his point, he settles himself more firmly in the direction of the kitchen, watching Nicky’s progress and making small, quick sketches when something strikes his eye.

Nile isn’t sure she wants to be here when Nicky starts cooking. She’s been around them enough to know Joe gets weirdly hot under the collar whenever Nicky slices fruit.

Beside her, Booker is quiet. He’s watched everything unfold from the sidelines, the same way he has for the past month, for the past couple centuries if what she’s heard from the others is correct. Always an outsider. Never feeling like he truly belongs, like he _has_ someone. A family.

His expression now is particularly gloomy, sad at the eyes and brow pinched with a longing kind of jealousy. As if he can’t reach out. As if he can’t have this.

Nile rolls her eyes and kicks him lightly underneath the table.

“Let me show you something,” she says.

She stands and plops down on the window seat next to Joe, curls her legs up underneath herself and smiles when Joe automatically lifts an arm to pull her closer, keep her there.

She turns to Booker, eyebrows raised pointedly in his direction. _See? Look how easy that was_. 

But obviously her message wasn’t clear enough.

Booker’s fingers are still twitching and that same jealous longing is now directed at her as well. As if she’s showing off _look what I can do_ instead of _look what **you** can do if you only try._

She heaves an overdramatic sigh and pushes herself into Joe’s chest, dislodging his sketchbook. “Man, I don’t know why you let all this go to waste,” she says.

Joe looks down at her, confused, but she’s looking straight at Booker.

“Do I still miss my mom sometimes?” she says, voice soft. “My brother? Hell yeah I do. But I also have something great right here,” she pats at Joe’s knee and exchanges a quick look with Nicky out in the kitchen. “Family doesn’t end in blood, Booker, and even if it did I’m sure we’ve all shared plenty of that too.”

Booker huffs a laugh, eyes wet and shoulders hunched, looking away from her and down at the table.

Joe is quiet and unmoving behind her, one arm wrapped around her waist to keep her from falling over even as her elbow digs into his thigh. He is endlessly patient and gentle, full of love and affection that he eagerly gives to anyone who will accept it. It’s written as clearly across his heart as it is his face. His actions. To anyone who cares to look. But somehow Booker has been blind to all of it, to all of the love the rest of his team was so ready to give.

Nile can understand his pain, to a degree, but she also can’t believe how blinded by grief he was, to not see what she had recognized in barely a day. Had felt so clearly in less than a year.

They are a _family_.

He’s never had to be alone.

“Come on,” she says. “Stop making that face and get over here.”

He looks up at her, clearly unwilling, eyes flickering to Joe.

Which, understandable.

Out of all of them, he had been the angriest, had struggled the most accepting him back. But he is motionless now, makes no move to stand and step away.

Nile lifts a brow expectantly, slips into French and makes sure her accent is particularly American and terrible just to see the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Hurry up, we’re not getting any younger.”

He shakes his head and stands, comes and sits awkwardly at the other end of the sofa, pressed to the opposite window frame as if that is what Nile had intended.

At least he bridged the distance; that’s close enough for now.

She refrains from rolling her eyes and readjusts on the seat instead, scoots down and plops her head in Joe’s lap, stretches her legs across Booker’s.

Nicky is watching them quietly from the kitchen, paused in his work with a fond look on his face. Nile yawns and pointedly closes her eyes.

“You boys can move when dinner’s ready.”

She feels more than hears Joe’s resulting laughter, accepts the jostling as he retrieves his sketchbook then settles easily into the arm he rests on her shoulder, the subtle movements of it in tandem to the sound of a pencil scratching across the page.

Eventually, Booker settles as well, one hand coming to rest tentatively at her calf, becoming heavier as he relaxes when he isn’t pushed away. It feels nice, like this, warm and connected with Nicky tinkering in the kitchen a few feet away, Andy and Quynh just down the hall.

She hopes they can find moments like this more often, drifts off thinking about it and wakes up to a gentle hand at her shoulder.

“Dinner’s ready, Nile.”

She groans and stretches, looks up at Joe then down to where Booker’s head is lolled against the window, breath whistling with little snores. She hears a soft laugh to Joe’s other side and cranes her head around, spots Nicky sitting on the floor and leaning against Joe’s thigh.

He catches her staring. “Quynh offered to finish in the kitchen.”

As if on cue, she hears the scrape of a pan followed by the light thwack of a spoon. “Go sit at the table with everyone else.”

“They haven’t even moved yet.”

“You’re the boss, tell them to hurry up.”

Nile sits up and nudges Booker in the thigh, unable to hold back the laugh at the way he startles and snorts awake.

“Time to eat,” she says.

He stares at her, eyes flicking to the casual way she and Joe and Nicky are all pressed together, to the way he is still a few inches apart, connected by Nile and the firm pressure of her heel against his thigh.

“I thought Nicky was fixing dinner?”

“Quynh offered to help.”

“So they broke something,” Booker smiles. “Wonder what it is.”

“You can help me fix it tomorrow and find out,” Quynh calls from the kitchen.

Andy groans. “Why did I think this was a good idea?”

With mingled laughter, they all drift to the table, settle into seats that suddenly seem closer, less divided. There’s a bowl of rice in front of each of them and a pot of curry in the middle of the table, ready for each of them to take their share.

Nile takes Booker’s bowl, fills it right to the brim.

Halfway through dinner, he reaches out for more.

\---

Missions take them around the world, sometimes together, sometimes not. Nicky and Joe disappear for a month or two to travel South America. Andy and Quynh spend a summer in the Mongolian steppes. Booker takes a short trip with Andy to Russia, then with Nile to Paris.

(He was adamant she see the sights with him, learn about his country and its capital city with someone who knew its streets, knew the cigarette butts and piss on the streets but loved it anyways.)

She promised to show him Chicago, one day. When it was safer and the memories didn’t burn as unshed tears behind her eyes.

She’d spent a winter with Nicky and Joe in Rome, celebrating Christmas in a beautiful, old cathedral, staring up at the artistry while Nicky sang hymns beside her, in a language she didn’t fully know but rhythms she had memorized since childhood. It eased the sting of another year’s passing. Traditions would fade and reshape with time, but for now it helped to hold on, to remind herself of where she came from and the continuity of the world around her.

Andy took her to Egypt and the bustling market streets in the shadows of the Pyramids.

Quynh took her to Thailand during Songkran, dragged her into the crowds to get doused with water.

This life can be crazy and full of chaos, but between each of those bright, blinding moments is a calm that Nile is still struggling to sink into.

The others have learned to adapt, picking up books and languages and hobbies with a deliberate and unhurried hand. They let each moment stretch until it becomes separate from time. Adrift. Caught in the edges of history as a month, a year slips by.

It reminds her a bit of life in the military, the hurry up and wait. Just on a much larger scale.

They’re all together again now, settled into the same space for the first time since those tumultuous couple months in Germany.

The place is smaller, open air and lined with mosquito nets at the edge of the Amazon. Bugs and amphibians cry out in the jungle around them. Rain frequently creates a drumming against the roof.

“I can’t believe how many colors there are now,” Quynh says.

Her hand is on the table between them, fingers spread so Nile can paint polish across each nail. She’s chosen a white base with holo glitter, says it reminds her of the snow.

“The miracle of modern chemicals I guess,” Nile says. “I used to have hot pink and neon yellow polish when I was a kid.”

Quynh considers that possibility. “It could be fun. Although Andy would have a fit about drawing attention.”

Nile snorts. “We already draw attention.”

They made an odd group, with the weight on their shoulders and the way they moved, careful, eyes full of centuries. Why not have a little fun? Honestly, it would probably make them look _more_ normal. Balance out some of the ancient energy.

She digs in the bag of supplies beside her to pull out the topcoat, eyes catching on another bottle as it passes by her fingers.

“Hey, do you mind if I borrow this?”

She holds it up and Quynh nods, hardly paying it any mind as Nile gets to work applying the final layer.

A couple hours later Nicky and Joe come tromping through the door, knocking mud from their boots and leaving them by the entrance. Joe disappears into their room to change immediately, but Nicky lingers to ask Nile what she’s reading.

“Honestly I’m still trying to figure it out myself,” she admits. “It’s something Booker recommended.”

Booker, who had come into the room an hour or so ago and set up in one of the corners with a book of his own, looks up at that with a laugh.

“You’ve barely started. You can’t already be complaining.”

“Who said I was complaining?” She looks up at Nicky. “Was I complaining?”

His lips twitch up in a smile. “Booker is sensitive about his literature.”

“You all have no taste,” Booker sighs.

Nile shakes her head and closes her book, looks up at Nicky. “Are you free?”

His eyebrows raise questioningly and Nile stands, leads him out of the room to Booker’s good-natured grumbling at their backs. She walks quickly, hoping to spirit him away before Joe reemerges and just manages to usher him through her bedroom door when Joe’s head pops out in the hallway.

He catches one look at her face and groans.

“What are you planning now?”

She smiles, innocent. “You can thank me later.”

She watches his eyes widen for one, beautiful moment then winks and shuts the door. Locks it for good measure.

Joe bangs his head lightly on the doorframe down the hall.

Nicky is staring at her with his arms crossed. “What have you done?”

“I haven’t done anything, not yet anyway.” She snags the small bottle off the end table and holds it up, shakes it enticingly. “Want to have some fun?”

His brows furrow and he reaches for the bottle, reads the label and only looks more confused. “Nail polish?”

Nile nods.

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you remember Italy?” she asks. “With the hair?”

She’s still extremely proud of herself for that one. And although he did end up cutting it eventually, he kept it longer than before, hair still curling around his ears and framing his face, enough for Joe to run his fingers through. A compromise.

His hair is damp at the temples with sweat now, some of it held back by a band Joe most likely helped him with that morning.

He sighs and runs a hand over his face, looks up at the ceiling.

“Do you trust me?” Nile asks. “Because I really think this will work.”

“By ‘work’ I assume you mean torture Joe?”

Nile shrugs. “I’m going camping with Booker tonight and Andy and Quynh have dealt with you for centuries so I don’t think anyone is really going to suffer.”

He relents with a sigh, sitting on the bed and holding out a hand. Nile quickly gets to work.

The humidity makes each coat take a little longer to dry, but they talk and share stories to pass the time, Nile having to occasionally swat at Nicky’s hand when he goes to brush his hair back and ruin everything.

Before long, she’s reaching for the topcoat and sealing the color in, capping the bottles and admiring her handiwork. Each of Nicky’s fingers is dotted in a swatch of black, glossy and thick across each nail.

He’s looking at them curiously, still not quite getting the appeal, but he blows on them gently when Nile directs him and says nothing as she rummages in her duffle.

“How do you do with things around your eyes?” she asks. He opens his mouth and she quickly cuts him off. “And I don’t mean _in_ your eyes. I’m not going to stab you in the retina.”

“Why would you be stabbing me at all?”

She holds out her eyeliner pencil, takes off the cap and lets him inspect the pointed tip.

“Oh,” he says.

“I can coach you through doing it yourself or I can help.”

He looks up at her for a moment, considering, his hands held carefully between his legs, fingers still spread.

“I trust you. And I imagine it will be over faster if you do it for me.”

Nile grins. “That’s the spirit. Now try not to blink and I promise not to do permanent damage.”

His lips thin. “Comforting.”

Despite his reservation and her joking, she does a good job. She goes as slowly and carefully as she can and he’s a statue beneath her hands, staring at a point just past her shoulder as she draws a thin black line beneath his eyes and across his upper lashes. When she finally pulls away, he blinks, visibly clearing away some of the sensation.

Nile gives him a nod of approval.

“Looking good, old man.”

Nicky stands and pokes experimentally at one nail, finds it dry and crosses to the mirror to examine his face.

“I still don’t get it. But you and Joe seem to be in tune with these kinds of things, so I’ll trust your judgment.”

Nile knocks his shoulder. “Then take down your hair and wait here while I get some clean clothes from your room.”

“May I ask what’s wrong with the ones I’m wearing?”

“One, they’re sweaty. Two, I’m surprised Joe even lets you out of the house in those shorts. No one needs that many pockets.”

He frowns, looks down at the shorts in question as she slips out the door, doesn’t complain when she returns with one of his grey t-shirts and a pair of black shorts (ones that fit and have a normal number of pockets), his hair out of its tie lying loose and slightly damp around his face.

Vision complete, she opens the door and waves him out, follows him down the hall towards everyone’s voices, Andy and Quynh apparently back from their afternoon walk and Booker and Joe sitting with them at the table. Andy sees them first, looks up at the ceiling and shakes her head as Quynh follows her gaze and grins.

“So that’s what you needed it for.”

Nile smiles and sits down beside her, accepts the high five beneath the table.

Joe is speechless, staring up at Nicky like he can’t quite process what he’s seeing.

Booker groans.

“Why?” he asks. “Weren’t they bad enough already?”

“If Joe starts composing sonnets again I’m leaving the country.” Andy looks over at Quynh. “Did you encourage this?”

“I unknowingly enabled. But I regret nothing.”

The chair scrapes as Joe stands, taking the few steps necessary to hold Nicky’s face in his hands, trace reverent thumbs across his cheekbones.

“You look beautiful, my love.”

Their lips meet in a kiss and Nile smiles, catches Andy and Booker smiling too even if they groan to try and hide it.

Quynh wolf whistles as they part, smirking at the flush on Nicky’s face and the smitten look in Joe’s eyes.

“Absolutely insufferable,” she grins.

Later that evening, she helps Nile to leave a note outside their door, a little piece of paper wrapped around the polish and eyeliner, a simple _you’re welcome_ written inside.

The next time Nile helps Quynh paint her nails, just a few weeks later at a small hotel in Peru, Nicky sits down beside them and holds out his hands, waits for Nile to help him too.

Quynh’s nails are a neon yellow, Nicky’s a dark, sparkling blue.

\---

“Nile, you know I love you but this injustice has to end.”

She looks up from her bed, Italian notes spread out around her and one earbud hanging half haphazardly from her hand.

She lifts one, judgmental brow.

Technically speaking, he’d knocked first. But the pause between her calling out to come in and him dramatically bursting through the door had been infinitesimal. For appearances, at best.

She isn’t surprised, has honestly been waiting for a moment like this ever since the nail polish incident, but she hadn’t expected quite this level of theatrics.

He stands before her now, eyes full of a righteous passion as he says, “You and Nicky have teased me enough. Twice now you have taken him and returned him changed to take my breath away. It is _my_ turn.”

Nile sits up, takes out her other earbud and wraps the wire around her mp3 player. ( _Mp3 player._ Because Andy was still keeping a strict rule about traceable phones.)

“You already know what looks good on you, you don’t need my help.”

Joe pouts. Pouts like he’s a four-year-old child and not a nearly one thousand year old immortal being.

“Nicky doesn't care about fashion. I’ve learned this. _You_ have learned this.”

She stares him down. Waits. Figures there’s more to come and isn’t disappointed.

“The hair I understood, had I been able to convince him myself I would have done so years ago. But the nail polish and the makeup… I had never considered something like that. I know Nicky hadn’t either.” He fixes her with a look. “You have _ideas,_ Nile. I’d like you to share another. With me.”

“Any particular reason you’re bringing this up now?” she asks, stalling for time as she stands up and starts putting her notes away.

Joe lets out a sigh, infatuated and frustrated all at once.

“Nicky made me breakfast in bed and his nail polish matched the black cherry jam,” he says. “I wasn’t sure which I wanted in my mouth more and Nicky kindly indulged me in both. I would like to indulge him as well, so, please. An _idea._ ”

Nile turns and holds up a hand. “First,” she says. “TMI. Second, I’ll help you—but only because Nicky deserves it.”

Joe’s face lights up. “You already have an idea then?”

“I do,” she says. “But I’m going to tell you what I told him. And that is that you have to trust me. No complaining.”

“You have a wonderful taste in fashion, Nile,” he says easily, obvious not concerned. “I have complete faith in your abilities.”

Nile just smirks. “Just remember that five minutes from now.”

She walks past him and motions out the door, leads them down the hall as he asks, “Five minutes? We’re not going shopping?”

“Nope,” she says. “Got everything right in here.” She gestures to the closed door of his and Nicky’s room. “Is it safe to go in or do you have to do damage control first?”

He opens his mouth, brow furrowed to defend himself, then abruptly snaps it shut. “Wait one moment.”

She waits, he disappears, there’s some banging and rustling then the door swings open again. He gestures her inside.

“Welcome, welcome. My nice things are in the closet, underclothes mixed with Nicky’s in the drawers and—” He pauses, stares at her as she rifles through Nicky’s duffle, half crumpled and banished to the corner. “What are you doing?”

Nile ignores him, fingers flicking past an old t-shirt and crumpled receipts, that wretched pair of cargo shorts and the empty shells that fall from its pockets. Then she gets to the first hoodie, looks at the frayed sleeves and recognizes it from a night a long time ago, when she was just beginning to settle into their group. It has fond memories, but it’s not the one she wants.

Joe is hovering nervously behind her.

“That’s Nicky’s duffle,” he says. As if that wasn’t obvious from the undershirt she tosses to the floor, hole in the collar and what looks like a few dots of wine on the front.

It’s honestly amazing how Nicky stills hauls these things around, stuffed at the bottom of his bag like the layer of leaf litter in the forest.

Finally, she finds it.

Another black hoodie, but this one has shrunk a bit in the wash. (She knows because she’s the one who shrunk it, accidentally threw it in with some towels and left it in too long and Nicky had smiled at her fondly when she’d immediately gone out and bought him another.) She’d had a feeling he’d keep it anyway.

She tosses it at Joe.

“Take your Henley off and put that on. And change into comfortable pants, the style doesn’t matter.”

Joe stares at her, obviously conflicted.

“Nicky doesn’t care about fashion,” she reminds him. “But he’ll care about this. You have to trust me, remember?”

He sighs but does as told, tossing his Henley on the foot of the bed and pulling the sweatshirt over his head. It’s tight. It might barely fit Nicky, but it’s definitely small on Joe, hugs his biceps and chest and shoulders in a way that is just this side of unsubtle. He looks _good._ Fit, but still soft and approachable.

She has complete confidence that Nicky will approve.

Joe has turned to stare at himself thoughtfully in the mirror.

“It’s not horrible,” he admits.

Nile punches him in the shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

When Nicky returns that evening, Andy’s hand hooked through his arm and both of them laughing, fingers sticky from baklava and eyes bright from an afternoon in the Greek markets, the first thing he sees is Nile.

Her face must say it all because he suddenly looks a little apprehensive, a little excited, and he releases Andy’s hand with a final squeeze before walking further into their little house.

“Joe?” he calls.

“In here, love.”

Andy lifts her eyebrows and Nile smirks, both of them following Nicky into the small living room where Joe is stretched out reading on the coach. From an outside perspective, he looks fairly ordinary. Just a dude, relaxing, nothing to see here.

But Nicky’s eyes narrow, then widen, and then he promptly blankets himself on top of Joe’s body, unceremoniously knocking the book from his hands in order to plant himself firmly across his chest. Joe makes a quiet _oof_ but doesn’t move, just stares down at him in shock for a moment before wrapping him in his arms.

“Nicky?” he asks.

His eyes dart to Nile but she just gives him a thumbs up, disappears back down the hall to grab Nicky’s other sweatshirt from his bag, the one that is worn out and frayed and perfectly soft to the touch. His nice one is folded in one of the drawers. But now isn’t the time for that.

She returns to the living room and throws the old one on top of his head, biting back a laugh at the way he’s got his face aggressively cuddled into Joe’s neck while Joe just stares down at him, mystified.

At the sudden fabric darkening of his vision, Nicky makes a soft, inquisitive sound and pulls away, looks down at the sweatshirt for a moment before turning to Nile, then to Joe.

He strips off his t-shirt without any further preamble, puts on the sweatshirt and pulls the hood over his head, fuses himself back to Joe’s side, face hidden, one arm slipping up beneath Joe’s sweatshirt and the other wedging between Joe and the couch.

Then, he stops. Goes completely still.

Joe is well and truly pinned and looks absolutely thrilled about it, hands settling gently on Nicky’s back before running smoothly up and down his spine.

He turns to Nile, question clear in his eyes.

She shakes her head. “Oldest trick in the book, man. Sweatshirts are a _thing._ ”

Nicky hums happily.

Joe kisses the top of his head.

Booker fakes a gag when he comes back in time for dinner, but he also brings them both a plate, sets them down on the coffee table so they don’t have to untangle.

Quynh coos, ruffles Joe’s hair when she walks by before loudly whispering to Andy that she can borrow her clothes _any_ time. Andy flicks her ear and tells her to fuck off.

A few minutes later and Nile can’t resist, pulls out her sketchbook (the same one Joe gave her a few months ago) and meets his eyes from over the top of Nicky’s head. They share a soft, private smile and Nile takes a breath, lets the moment settle around her like a blanket, like a hug, like warm sand between her toes.

Her pencil starts across the page.

She has a feeling this a moment she’ll never want to forget.

And decades, centuries later when she finds it at the bottom of one of her own duffle bags…

She knows she was right.


End file.
